Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Synecdoche, New York

Caden (Hoffman) is a theater director who’s life is quite
literally falling apart. After winning a prestigious grant he sets out to
create the play of all plays using what eventually becomes a life-sized model
of New York. Director/writer Charlie Kaufman is also the man who
wrote Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind and this is similarly odd in execution. We also get treated to another
great performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman. However, I must admit I’m a big
fan of his. I’d probably enjoy him reading the phone book. Michelle Williams
also does an excellent job as Caden’s second wife Claire, as does Tom Noonan as
Sam, who gets hired to portray Caden in the play. Oh, and kudos to Kaufman for
using women in his cast that look like, well, real women.

The problem is the movie is made up of metaphor upon metaphor upon metaphor
upon…you get the point. What the directors (both the real one and his fictional
counterpart) are trying to do is fairly simple but the method is ridiculously
convoluted. Any tangible ideas are buried beneath mounds of symbolism. It’s a
classic example of why great writers shouldn't necessarily direct their own screenplays.
With no one to rein him in, it seems he took every “deep” idea that he had and
threw it up on the screen. To top it all off, he completely failed with all
those “real” looking women. The very basic question is why on Earth would
seemingly every woman he comes into contact with, except first wife Adele (Keener),
be madly in love with or be sexually attracted to this guy? Not only is he
coming apart at the seams, both physically and emotionally, everyone can
plainly see that he is. He's rather repulsive and doesn't exactly ooze sex appeal. Finally, I’m going to need someone smarter than me
to explain the constant fire in Hazel’s (Morton) house.

Fans of the aforementioned Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind should give this a look. The truth is, even though I’m a big fan of both those movies maybe I just didn't get this one. You might, and hail it a great artistic achievement. For the rest of us, not so much. It’s definitely original and quirky, but often frustrating to watch.